The alphabet of memories

The itinerant storytelling of the Museo del diario

The Little Museum of the Diary (Piccolo museo del diario) has decided to leave its Tuscan home in Pieve Santo Stefano and travel further afield, thanks to a new transportable, interactive and itinerant technological development.

‘The alphabet of the memory’ is a device designed by dotdotdot to a brief submitted by Italy’s National Diary Archives. It was devised to satisfy the requirements of the Museum’s mission to publicize the stories immortalized in the diaries to a public beyond the boundaries of Palazzo Pretorio.

The tales are narrated and revealed in a suitcase that looks like a Chinese box with drawers, filing cabinets, display units and drop-down leaves, all with a simple, clean esthetics, They have been coordinated with the installations already present along the museum exhibition pathway that unfolds in Pieve Santo Stefano, designed in recent years by dotdotdot.

This mobile and compact archive contains an automated, easy-to-use technological system that allows the user to examine the contents in a simple and intuitive way, facilitating the comprehension of the full-immersion and all-embracing aspects of the stories.

A filing cabinet has been organized in alphabetical order, allowing visitors to easily select the information sheet they wish to explore; they can also activate the audio and visual content presented through the screens and speakers connected to the device.

A drawer, fitted with three different buttons, describes the history of the Archive: The Foundation, the Pieve Saverio Tutino prize and the Piccolo museo del diario.

The ‘alphabet of the memory’ was first presented on Tuesday May 24th in Teatro India, Rome; it covered a selection of stories and diaries from the time of the Great War, and was part of the conference ‘Digital Fingerprints: the tracks of memories’ and the show ‘The Unknown Soldier 1915-18’ by Mario Perrotta.

The multimedia exhibition pathway of the Piccolo museo del diario, commissioned by Italy’s National Foundation for Diary Archives and the City Council of Pieve Santo Stefano poetically presents diaries, letter exchanges, autobiographical memoirs of unknown people who left signs of their lives for the future generations..

The museum pathway evolves and develops year-on-year, thanks to the ongoing collaboration with studio dotdotdot.

Collaborators

Nicola Buccioli

Vittorio Cuculo

Thanks to

Opendot for its invaluable assistance with the initiative with Tiziano Berti